1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates to wireless telephony and, more specifically, to usage of infrastructure for multimedia-to-video conversion to enhance real-time mobile video service.
2. Related Art
Video transmission in telephony system is well known, especially on landline phone systems. Recently, various standards have been established for video transmission over mobile phone systems. However, video screens that are used in today's mobile video services are mostly based on professional work from video editing studios that use sophisticated equipment, such as exists in TV or art studios, to edit and generate video screens. In this working mode, the person designing the video screen uses dedicated equipment to edit the design of video screens, its graphical elements, displayed text, its location and possibly its dynamics (appearance, movement), and so on. At the end of this process, a set of fixed video files is created. These files are uploaded to the operational system to be used in the real-time service.
As an alternative to studio work, commercial tools are available which usually handle specific aspects that are required for the process of creating video, including: video editing, conversion of pictures to video, conversion of text to video, creation of animated graphics (e.g. Flash), combining audio with video (audio dubbing) and more. Virtually all commercially available tools are standalone software packages (or systems) that are operated manually by users in different levels of expertise, and serve a specific purpose or a restricted set of functions for preparation and editing of video content. Examples of such tools are:                Ulead VideoStudio by Ulead        Pinnacle Studio by Pinnacle        DVD-lab Pro by Media Chance        Real Producer by RealNetworks        VirtualDub (GNU open source)        FFMPEG (GNU open source), and more.Additionally, some applications rely on a client software to run. Using such a system requires that the client software be installed on a compatible handheld device, and that the client software be compatible with the application. This presents the possibility that a person using one service provider may not be able to receive a video transmission from a subscriber using a different service provider if the application is not compatible. Additionally, this limits the number of customers who use the video service only to those who upgraded their handheld device to a compatible device having the proper client software.        
The various standards for implementation of current state of the art mobile telephony, generally referred to herein as 3G, incorporate protocols for video calls, which is an advancement over prior art audio or voice calls. Accordingly, the current assignee, Comverse, has recently developed a state of the art mailbox that is operable as a video mailbox in addition to voice and/or text mailbox. Using this mailbox, a subscriber can, for example, leave a greeting in the form of a video clip. Similarly, callers to the subscriber can leave messages in the form of video clips. When the video clips are transmitted to the subscriber, they are formatted, coded and transmitted using the various 3G standards. As can be appreciated, the mailbox provides improved multi-media communications services to the users, which increase usage of 3G enhanced features and, thereby increase revenue of service providers.
While the various 3G standards provide the protocols for video and voice transmission, they speak only in terms of how to transmit such data, but do not provide information as to what can be transmitted using this infrastructure. That is, the 3G standards do not define the content of the video and/or voice transmission.